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Ancient Architecture: Submitted By: Pallavi Maheshwari I Semester Section A

This document provides an overview of several ancient architectural styles from around the world, including Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Greek, Roman, Mayan, Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance, and Indian architecture. It describes key characteristics of each style such as common building materials, structural elements like columns and arches, and decorative features. The styles developed over time, with later ones like Gothic and Renaissance being influenced by earlier ones from cultures like ancient Greece and Rome.

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82 views

Ancient Architecture: Submitted By: Pallavi Maheshwari I Semester Section A

This document provides an overview of several ancient architectural styles from around the world, including Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Greek, Roman, Mayan, Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance, and Indian architecture. It describes key characteristics of each style such as common building materials, structural elements like columns and arches, and decorative features. The styles developed over time, with later ones like Gothic and Renaissance being influenced by earlier ones from cultures like ancient Greece and Rome.

Uploaded by

pallavi maheshwari
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PPT, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Ancient Architecture

Submitted by :
Pallavi Maheshwari
I Semester
Section A
Topics To Be Covered
Egyptian
Mesopotamia
Greek
Roman
Ancient America – Mayan
Romanesque
Gothic
Renaissance
India
Egyptian
3000 BC to Roman period

Funerary Buildings –
 Created for Monarchs &
Nobles
 Stepped Design
 Granite, limestone, and
sandstone - Both sun-dried
and kiln-dried bricks were
used extensively
 Hieroglyphics were
decoration as well as records
of historic events.
Egyptian

Temples
 Columns/Colonnades (post &
lintel)
 First stone capital = papyrus
flower
 Nile floods deposit fine clay,
allowing ceramic arts to develop
early
 Sandstone, limestone, & granite
available for obelisks, sculpture,
and decorative uses. 
 Ramps – build on the way up,
decorate as it’s taken down
Mesopotamia –
Babylon, Assyria, Persia
 Planned city building,
cobblestone streets, and
architecture itself have their
beginnings here
 Mud brick on a raised plinth
(platform base)
 Walls are ornamented on the
outside with alternating
pilasters and recesses
 Flat roofs, supported on palm
trunks, (assumed)
Ziggurat
Mesopotamia

Saddam’s Palace

Ishtar Gate
Greek
 The temple is the best known
form of Greek architecture.
 These biggest and most
beautiful buildings reflect the
importance of religion.
 The political purpose - to
celebrate civic power and
pride.
 Beauty lies in ratios &
proportions = The Golden
Mean
The Greeks developed three architectural systems, called
orders, each with their own distinctive proportions and
detailing.
Doric

Ionic Corinthian

The Doric style is sturdy The Ionic style is thinner The Corinthian style is
and the capital is plain. and more elegant. Its seldom used in the
This style was used in capital is decorated with a Greek world, but often
mainland Greece and the scroll-like design (a seen on Roman temples.
colonies in southern Italy volute). This style was Its capital is very
and Sicily. found in eastern Greece elaborate and decorated
and the islands. with acanthus leaves.
Greek
 Buildings were usually a
cube or a rectangle made
from limestone which was
cut into large blocks.
 Marble was readily
available. It was used
mainly for sculptural
decoration, only used as
structural in the very
grandest buildings of the
Classical period.
Roman
 Roman art and
architecture shaped by
extensive borrowing, first
from Etruscans, then from
Greece.
 One architectural technique
that came into use by
experimentation was the
arch and vault.
Roman
 To support the
tremendous weight of
the arches, it was
necessary to transmit
the force of gravity from
the top of massive piers
to the foundation of the
arch. The Romans
achieved this feat
through the use of the
Keystone block.
Roman
 Circular structures were
common as well,
exemplified by the
Temple of Vesta, the
Pantheon and the Castel
Sant'Angelo.
Roman
The word "arena" is
Latin for sand. Sand
was spread across the
amphitheater fighting
floor to soak up blood.
Romanesque
 Romanesque is
characterized by a use of
round or slightly pointed
arches, barrel vaults,
cruciform piers supporting
vaults, and groin vaults.
 The great carved portals
and church facades
 Stone sculpture seems
reborn in the
Romanesque.
Romanesque
 Romanesque seems to have
been the first pan-European
style since Roman Imperial
Architecture and examples
are found in every part of the
continent. Merchants,
nobles, knights, artisans,
and peasants crossed
Europe and the
Mediterranean world for
business, war, and religious
pilgrimages, carrying their
knowledge of what buildings
in different places looked
like.
Gothic
 Originating in northern
France (Denis) in the
twelfth century, Gothic
spread rapidly across the
continent and England,
then invaded
Scandinavia, confronted
the Byzantine provinces.
 Made appearances,
under the aegis of
crusader and explorer in
the Near East and the
Americas.
 By 1400 it had subsumed
many types of structures.
Gothic
There is no fixed set of
proportions in the
parts, and no standard
relationship between
solid and void. The
result is a distortion.
Gothic
 Light, open and aerial.
 Emphasizes verticality
 Features almost skeletal stone
structures
 Great expanses of glass
(stained)
 Sharply pointed spires
 Flying butresses
 Ribbed vaults
 Pointed arches
 Inventive sculptural detail
Renaissance
Rebirth of classical art
and learning
Classical orders, round
arches, and
symmetrical
composition
The golden mean
Renaissance
 The ideals of art and
architecture became unified in
the acceptance of classical
antiquity and in the belief that
humanity was a measure of the
universe.
 The rebirth of classical
architecture, which took place
in Italy in the 15th century and
spread in the following century
through Western Europe,
terminated the supremacy of
the Gothic style.
India
 All surviving architecture is
stone
 Post and lintel, brackets
and corbels
 Rhythmical multiplication
of pilasters, cornices,
moldings, roofs, and finials
 Overgrowth of sculpture
decoration
CONCLUSION
The importance of arches and pillars are
outstanding.
Roman and Greek buildings would not have been
as amazing without the introduction of Pillars,
arches, brick and cement.
THANK YOU…

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